78th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (Nov 23 — 25, 2025)
P035: Bubbly Love
A water jet entering a pool can suspend bubbles to create beautiful heart shapes. As a jet enters a liquid pool, it creates a region of downward moving fluid and low pressure. The low pressure pulls bubbles in the vicinity toward the jet as the fluid momentum pushes the bubbles downward through shear forces. When the bubbles are sufficiently large, the jet momentum deforms the lower portion of the bubble into a roughly conical shape, while the upper portion remains nearly hemispherical forming one lobe of the heart. If the jet captures two bubbles simultaneously, the heart is complete, as also shown by the three smaller images to the right. The bubble pair remains suspended together in a harmonious balance of buoyancy and jet momentum until their eventual breakup, which momentarily appears like a broken heart.
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